Critique of Academic Funding and Promotion Systems in STEM Fields
By
sito42
2mo ago· 15 min readenOpinion
100/100
Golden Brown
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Crackling crust, pillowy middle. The kind of bagel that earns a second cup of coffee.
Score100TypeopinionSentimentnegative
Summary
The article critiques the current academic funding and promotion system in STEM fields, particularly in the US. It explains that while universities pay professors to teach, promotion and recognition primarily come from research, which is funded by external sources like the federal government. The author argues this creates misaligned incentives where teaching is undervalued, and researchers spend excessive time writing grant proposals rather than doing actual research. The piece calls for reforming the system to better align funding with academic priorities and reduce the administrative burden on researchers.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledIn STEM fields, it works like this: the university pays you to teach, but unless you're at a liberal arts college, you don't actually get promoted or recognized for your teaching.
Instead, you get promoted and recognized for your research, which the university does not generally pay you for.
You have to ask someone else to provide that part of your salary, and in the US, that someone else is usually the federal government.
If you're lucky—and these days, very lucky—you get a grant to fund your research, but that means you're spending more time writing proposals than doing actual research.
OR: the long overdue forest fire
